[xzins]

His opinion is politically based, and therefore, it's crap.

Discipline, good order, and morale all say that gays should not be a part of the military.

And biology is definitely on the side of absolute prohibition...not just, don't ask/don't tell.

[Ax]

When I was on active duty back during the Paleozoic (60-63), I was in the US Air Force Security Service. The guys who qualified for language training were generally brighter than we knuckle-dragging Morse operators, and the stories going 'round all said that there was a higher incidence of gay airmen in that discipline than in any other. I don't know if there is empirical data to support that hypothesis.

There was a story going 'round a year or two ago about a section of soldiers who were attending the Arabic language course out at Dillywick (Defense Language Institute, West Coast-DLIWC). When it "came out" that they were gay, they were separated from the Army. It seemed to me then as now that that was a terrible waste of some badly-needed resources when we are in a fight for our lives. I hope some relevant civilian agency picked them us.

[leadpenny]

I wonder what the gay v. straight ratio is among Chaplains and Chaplain's assistants v. the military at large?

"Discipline, good order, and morale all say that gays should not be a part of the military."

No, homophobic chaplains say that.

[newzjunkey]

And biology is definitely on the side of absolute prohibition...

How do you figure? They are not born sterile, they are physically able to perform as soldiers in combat. Are you sure it isn't your own "politically based, and therefore, it's crap" view that leads you to such a conclusion? Discipline, good order, and morale all say that gays should not be a part of the military.

That may have been true even 15 years ago but if you read the article it doesn't appear to be a problem in our modern military. Society seems to be progressing beyond the paranoid view of leering homosexual ready to bugger you in your bunk.

Gays served before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and have been serving since and yet, somehow, our forces are performing well except for those who commit murder or abuse prisoners like those undisciplined homosexuals heterosexuals Charles Graner & Lynndie England at Abu Ghraib.

That unique policy, borne of Clinton's political cowardice has made things worse, not better. We can thank Colin Powell and the 1993 Democrat-led Congress for it.

I've long said, go forward to *open service* or go back to the outright prohibition. Looking at the list above seeing Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Venezuela and others on the prohibition of gays list makes it unpleasant for the U.S. to be identified with such nations.